Employment Insurance
If you do not have work at the end of your teaching contract, for example in the Winter, you can apply for employment insurance benefits. For college teachers, regular benefits rules apply. Even if you are not sure if you are eligible, Employment and Social Development Canada encourages people “to apply for benefits so our processing agents can determine if you are eligible.” You should apply as soon as you stop working.
More details and information can be found here: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-regular-benefit.html
The first of three initial consultation waves for negotiations is upon us!
For the 2020-2025 collective agreement sectoral table negotiations, our negotiating team at the Regroupement cégep proposed a two-level approach: issues and demands. The issues bear the specific points for negotiations and the demands, which have been deposited on October 28, offer themes or a form of abstraction as statement of principles. As the negotiations proceed, issues will be instantiated just in time.
In the last few months, VCTA members have been consulted for the writing of the List of Issues booklet and the Demands booklet. The latter constituting the document now waiting at the bargaining table for proposals from our employers.
Of note, to increase consultation with local unions, the issues were not ranked in priority, and the explicit links with demands were left for contextual consultation within unions.
The principles cover eight themes: job insecurity; continuing education; the teaching load and its distribution; resources and funding; employment, work organization and labour relations; professional autonomy; remuneration; and consolidation and transformation of the network.
The first round of three initial waves of consultation for the explicit linkage of issues to demands, was kicked off at the Regroupement cégep on November 14 and 15. It addresses the themes of work organization and professional autonomy.
The second wave will include continuing education and will take place in January.
Holidays and availability
Our statutory holidays are from December 25th to January 1st inclusively. Should you be unavailable to the College before of after these dates, please fill out the Transfer of Availability form. It is available on the Human Resources Services site under Vanier Communities in OMNIVOX at the following link: https://vaniercollege.omnivox.ca/intr/VanierHumanResources/
Paid workload reduction
Last April, some teachers who had participated in the Workload Reduction program received letters from the College that informed them that they would have to reimburse a part of their salary due to the value of their C.I. while they had been on Workload Reduction. As the collective agreement does not mention C.I. in the article that outlines Workload Reduction, the VCTA Executive grieved the College’s decision and immediately began the process to take the grievance to arbitration.
Shortly before the arbitration date, the College informed the VCTA that they accorded the VCTA “droit de grief.” They informed us that the teachers involved will be reimbursed and that the College will no longer engage in this procedure. We are still waiting for the agreements to be drawn up and signed, and we will inform the membership of any developments before the next deadline to apply for Workload Reduction.
Sick pay for Cont Ed teachers’ absences
With the new Québec Loi sur les Normes du Travail, as of January 1, 2019, Continuing Education teachers get 2 paid absences per year for sickness or family responsibilities. Teachers must have been employed by the College for at least 3 months and absences will be paid retroactively for 2019. The rate of pay will be 1/20th of the combined salary earned over the 4 weeks prior (as with paid holidays). If no substitute is used, teachers will still be expected to make up the missed class time (paid as usual).
If you are an hourly paid teacher who canceled one or more Continuing Education classes earlier this year for reasons of sickness or family responsibility, please contact HR. Let the VCTA know of any problems recovering your sick pay.
Vanier College at COP25
The college has signed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Accord to declare a climate emergency and commit to climate action. The letter signed by Vanier and hundreds of other education institutions from around the world will be been presented at the Climate Change Conference COP25 happening this week in Madrid. We are only the second cégep to sign it. More information: https://www.sdgaccord.org/climateletter
Gift ideas
Equiterre makes interesting environmentally friendly gift suggestions to consider this holiday season. Have a look at their page if you are interested: http://equiterre.org/en/news/december-action-of-the-month-environmentally-friendly-gifts-for-terrific-teachers
Happy holidays!
Your Executive,
Eric, Estelle, Jacques and Hugo